1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of a method of the attachment of bathroom accessories to bathroom walls. The present method simplifies this process, speeds it up thereby reducing labor and uses fewer parts. It is, therefore, less expensive.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A significant aspect of the prior art is provided by the apparatus being sold at the time of the writing of this application. The present invention concerns a method, not an apparatus, but the form of the presently sold prior art apparatus teaches the method by which it is necessarily installed. These days there is no known bathroom accessories being sold which use horizontal fasteners in the absence of mounting plates and set screws. In contrast the present invention eliminates mounting plates, mounting plate fasteners, templates, and set screws as a major part of the simplification of the installation method.
The presently sold bathroom accessories require the installer to first locate a mounting position and then use a template to locate a position for attaching to the wall a mounting plate in the vicinity of each portion of the accessory to be attached to the wall. Thus a towel rack or toilet paper holder each have a bracket to be attached to the wall at each end, thereby requiring the installer to position at least two mounting plates and then attach each of them to the wall with a plurality of fasteners for each of these accessories. Thereafter, each bracket is hung on an upper lip of the mounting plate, and then a set screw on the underside of each bracket must be threaded into a lower lip of the mounting plate and tightened. The latter step is very awkward. In the case of a toilet paper holder between the side of a toilet bowl and the wall, seeing the two set screws that have downwardly facing heads and tightening them in an upward direction is not a simple matter.
The present invention greatly simplifies the installation method by eliminating the mounting plates, the mounting plates fasteners, the templates, and the set screws. Beside each accessory, there is only one or two primary fasteners.
While fasteners are a necessary component of both the present invention and the prior art, and thus contribute nothing to the issue of patentabilty of the present invention, it is useful to understand the types of fasteners that are relevant to the description of the invention. It is also useful to review the terminology used in the industry that will be employed in this application. In the United States, residential interior walls are usually comprised of wall board, also called drywall or sheet rock, although there are some, particularly older structures, that are comprised of lath and plaster.
It is assumed for purposes of this application that all residential interior walls are hollow and supported by interior studs. Therefore, drilling into residential interior walls results in reaching either a hollow area or a stud. Reaching a stud results in being able to use a simple fastener such as a screw. Reaching a hollow area dictates the use of expandable fasteners, also described as anchors, or “molly bolts.” These include the following fasteners: winged plastic anchor, plug anchor, expansion anchor, drive-in expansion anchor, toggle bolt, winged nylon toogle anchor, strap toggle anchor, a wedge anchor, and the like. For purposes of this application, all expandable fasteners will be referred to as “expansion anchors.” All fasteners that include both expansion anchors and conventional fasteners will be simply referred to as “fasteners.”
A preexamination search of the prior art revealed an amazing amount of complexity in apparatus used for mounting bathroom accessories. Illustrative of that are three references herewith briefly described. The first of these is Bauer, U.S. Pat. No. 7,641,161 for “Bathroom Accessory Mounting Assembly and Method of Mounting” described therein is a mounting assembly that includes a mounting bracket, fastener, flange and post. The mounting bracket includes an axially extending body portion that receives the post.
The mounting bracket includes a snap flange that cooperates with the post to secure the post to the mounting bracket.
The second reference is Smith, U.S. Pat. No. 8,382,051 for a “Wall-Mounted Support Assembly for Bath Accessories”. It describes mounting bracket, a fastener assembly adapted to a fixed mounting bracket to a wall board, and accessory post assembly including an accessory post assembly including an accessory post and a post adapter commonly affixed to the accessory post, the accessory post including a wall defining essential body and a distal portion extending axially from the end of central body, the distal portion configured to support a bathroom accessory, etc. The complexity of this is shown by the fact that it required 20 drawing figures to adequately described it for patent purposes.
The third reference is Austin, I I I et al. U.S. Patent Publication Number US2014/0026402 for a “Hardware Mounting Bracket Assembly and Hardware”. Is described as bracket body adapted to be mounted to a support surface, with a rigid retainer provided on one of the bracket body to receive hardware supported thereon, with at least on elongate biasing retainer on another end of the bracket body spaced apart from the rigid retainer to engaged hardware supported thereon and to provide a loaded surface contact with hardware supported thereon. Once again, complexity can be seen in the drawings which required 10 drawing figures to describe it. By contrast the present invention requires only one screw or expansion anchor for each bracket and eliminates such parts as set screws, templates, mounting plates, and mounting plate fasteners for each bracket. Therefore, mounting a towel bar requires only two fasteners comprised of either screws or expansion anchors depending on the wall content thus reducing the expense of the product, reducing the number of parts, reducing the number of steps in the mounting method, and simplifying the complexity of the steps in the method.